Roy Hay

Melbourne Vicotry and Adelaide United renewed their long running rivalry for the Muscat-Kosmina Cup in addition to the A-League points.

Victory's grim reaper threatens Adelaide United

Jim Magilton put out his first Melbourne Victory side against Adelaide United on Friday night. It was on the usual lines, apart from Jean Carlos Solorzano, Diogo Ferreira and Petar Franjic all of whom started on the bench.

Adelaide United was also a settled side.

Melbourne Victory went off like a house on fire, scoring after only six minutes and having several chance to bury Adelaide United in the first fifteen, but as happened against Melbourne Heart recently, the visitors got back into the game and equalised early in the second half.

Thereafter Victory gradually ran out of legs and ideas and United could have taken all three points in the closing stages, with Victory resorting to long hopeful balls to its front runners.

Overall though it was a good quality game and both coaches praised their teams for their character and effort, while John Kosmina also mentioned the discipline his squad showed.

After 6 minutes Harry Kewell beat two men out on the left and fired the ball low across goal where Archie Thompson and Antony Golec slid in and the ball flew past Eugene Galekovic.

Thompson appeared to get the decisive touch and celebrated accordingly.

A minute previously Thompson had got clear and only a finger-tip by Galekovic and the post kept the ball out.

Cameron Watson crossed for Sergio van Dijk to beat Covic with a header but the ball went over the bar.

Harry Kewell put Danny Allsopp clear but the big man drove his shot into the side netting.
It was a high quality game with lots of good passing movments on both sides and several openings none of which were taken.

Fabio is upended

Neither side made changes in personnel at half-time but Adelaide survived an early Victory break when Harry Kewell crossed and Alsopp’s diving header went just wide of the post.

In 53 minutes a corner from Dario Vidosic was driven against the Victory bar by Nigel Boogard and Sergio van Dijk knocked the rebound back in to bring United level.

Adelaide fan sets off a flare after van Dijk's goal

Jean Carlos Solorzano came on for Allsopp in 64 minutes and looked full of running.

Kewell skinned Dario Vidosic in the 69^th minute and then hit the post with a rocket which beat Galekovic.

Solorzano rounded Nigel Boogaard and put a tempting ball across the goal but Thompson just could not reach it.

Thereafter Victory seemed to run out of ideas with too many players lacking movement on and off the ball.

Adelaide played out the game more strongly in the last fifteen minutes and van Dijk, Bruce Djite and Nigel Boogaard all had chances to win the game.

Match details

Friday 13 January 2012

Melbourne Victory 1 (Archie Thompson 6’) Adelaide United 1 (Sergio van Dijk 53’)

Venue: AAMI Park

Local kick-off: 8:00pm

Referee: Jarred Gillett

Assistant referees: Luke Brennan and George Lakrindis

Fourth official: Lucien Laverdure

Attendance: 20,959

Melbourne Victory

21. Ante Covic, 2. Matthew Foschini, 3. Fabio, 6. Leigh Broxham, 8. Grant Brebner (4. Petar Franjic 87’), 10. Archie Thompson, 12. Rodrigo Vargas, 16.Carlos Hernandez (13. Diogo Ferreira 71’), 18. Danny Allsopp (9. Jean Carlos Solorzano 64’), 22. Harry Kewell, 23. Adrian Leijer

Unused substitutes: 20. Lawrence Thomas

Yellow cards: Grant Brebner 44’, Fabio 82’

Red cards: nil

Adelaide United

1.Eugene Galekovic, 2.Osama Malik, 3.Nigel Boogaard, 5.Daniel Mullen, 7.Zenon Caravella, 9.Sergio van Dijk, 10.Dario Vidosic, 11.Bruce Djite, 12.Antony Golec, 14.Cameron Watson, 18.Fabian Barbiero (15.Jacob Melling 75’),

Unused substitutes: 20.Mark Birighitti, 21.Francisco Usucar, 17.Iain Ramsay.

Yellow cards: Nigel Boogaard 66’

Red cards: Nil

Roy Hay

Melbourne Heart’s winning streak came to an abrupt halt when Adelaide United scored a three-one win at AAMI Park in front of 8,272 fans on Wednesday afternoon.

That was the biggest home crowd for Heart since its first game in the A-League apart from the derbies against Victory.

Had the match been played later in the day it would probably have been even better.

Heart fielded an almost unchanged side, with only the injured skipper, Fred, missing, but that proved to be a vital absence.

Melbourne Heart line-up before the match

John Kosmina’s Adelaide welcomed back Iain Ramsay and gave a start to sixeteen year old Jacob Melling, both of whom started on the bench.

Mate Dugandzic surrounded by Adelaide United players but gets his pass away.

After an initial Heart flurry, with some multiple passing moves, Adelaide assumed control of the game and took the lead in the 38^th minute.

Simon Colosimo was exposed one-on-one with Bruce Djite and brought him down in the penalty area without making contact with the ball.

Sergio van Dijk planted the penalty kick.

Earlier Mate Dugandzic had been brought down near the bye-line by Francisco Usucar but no penalty was awarded.

That incident was a clear case for the official on the goal line which is used in the English Premier League and other competitions, since that person would have had a clear head-on view of the incident, whereas the central referee’s view was probably masked by Usucar and other players.

Colosimo injured his knee in the tackle on Djite and limped off in 41 minutes, with young Curtis Good taking his place.

Heart saw out the first half with no further alarms and Aziz Behich nearly equalized in injury time after skipping past two defenders, but as he said afterwards, ‘The ball got stuck between my feet,’ and his shot did not trouble Eugene Galekovic.

If Heart planned to make tactical switches at the interval, these were thrown into the waste basket when Zenon Caravella found Dario Vidosic who got the better of Brendan Hamill and squeezed the ball past Clint Bolton on three minutes after the restart.

David Williams came on for Rutger Worm and Alex Terra replaced Jason Hoffmann, but Adelaide countered with switches of its own replacing Djite, who was carrying an injury and playing in pain, according to John Kosmina, Caravella and Vidosic with Ramsay, Osama Malik and Melling.

Heart did have some good chances, with free kicks in dangerous areas, but Mate Dugandzic’s radar was not working, and Alex Terra’s looping header was just touched over by Galekovic at full stretch.

In 79 minutes van Dijk held off a challenge, turned and shot past Bolton to put the visitors three up in the 79^th minute.

Heart kept plugging away and had its best spell since the opening period in the last ten minutes.

In the first minute of stoppage time, Eli Babalj still had a lot of work to do when Dugandzic and Behich combined to find him inside the penalty area.

The youngster dragged the ball back and created space for a shot into the near corner of the goal.

Two minutes later he might have had a second from a pass by Matt Thompson, but this time his shot was collected by Galekovic.

John van’t Schip said that Adelaide had taken control of the game after the opening period and, while Heart had created good openings earlier when it did not convert it allowed Adelaide back into contention.

‘We did not play well again until the last twenty minutes,’ he said.

The absence of skipper Fred was particularly significant when Heart went behind, since he is the originator of many of Heart’s attacking moves and also lifts the team by his example.

John Kosmina said he was delighted to be back working at the A-League level with players who were committed and willing to learn and work together.

Both he and Nigel Boogaard said it was critical that United stuck to its game plan, and like all coaches Kosmina stressed that getting the process right was essential if results were to follow.

He praised young Melling for his character, willingness to learn, hunger for the game and physical commitment.

This is definitely one to watch.

Youth is getting experience at Adelaide, as has been the case at Melbourne Heart, so the future is beginning to look at lot brighter for Australian teams.

Didgeridoo player before the match.

Match details

Melbourne Heart 1 (Eli Babalj 90 + 1’) Adelaide United 3 (Sergio van Dijk 38’, 79’, Dario Vidosic 48’)

Venue: AAMI Park

Local kick-off: 3:15pm

Referees: Kris Griffiths-Jones

Assistant referees: Shaun Evans and George Lakrindis

Fourth official: Alex Azcurra

Attendance: 8,272

Melbourne Heart

1.Clint Bolton, 2.Michael Marrone, 3.Brendan Hamill, 4. Simon Colosimo (18.Curtis Good 41’), 6.Matt Thompson, 7.Rutger Worm (15.David Williams 55’), 16.Aziz Behich, 17.Jason Hoffman (11.Alex Terra 63’),  19.Eli Babalj, 23.Mate Dugandzic, 25.Adrian Madaschi,

Unused substitutes: 30.Sebastian Mattei

Yellow cards: Nil

Red cards: Nil

Adelaide United

1.Eugene Galekovic, 3.Nigel Boogaard, 5.Daniel Mullen, 7.Zenon Caravella (2.Osama Malik 71’), 9.Sergio van Dijk, 10.Dario Vidosic (15 Jacob Melling 77’), 11.Bruce Djite (17.Iain Ramsay 68’), 12.Antony Golec, 14.Cameron Watson, 18.Fabian Barbiero, 21.Francisco Usucar.

Unused substitutes: 20.Mark Birighitti

Yellow cards: Antony Golec 60’; Fabian Barbiero 80’; Daniel Mullen 84’.

Red cards: Nil.

Roy Hay

(This article appeared in Goal Weekly on 23 December 2011, p. 19.)

Charles Perkins was a pioneering figure in the recognition of the Aboriginal people of Australia. In the 1960s he led the freedom rides which brought discrimination against Aborigines into Australian politics. He was the first male Aboriginal graduate of the University of Sydney. He became chair of the Aboriginal Development Commission and head of the Federal Government’s Department of Aboriginal Affairs. For four decades he was one of the most recognised figures across a range of issues affecting the indigenous peoples of Australia. Yet it was football where he first made his name and football which set him on the way to his later achievements. As he said ‘Football serves a three-fold purpose. The first was to provide me with finance for my study. Second, it enabled me to keep fit because I needed to study for such long hours., Third, it was the means whereby I could mix socially and enjoy myself comfortably.’

Born in 1936 near Alice Springs. His mother was of the Arunta people, a very inclusive group, and his father whom he only saw once, was of the Kalkadoon people from Mount Isa. Charles was taken to Adelaide at the age of ten along with several other children by a Church of England pastor. Among the Aboriginal children in the school at Marryatville was John Moriarty, another who made his way through football to an important career in Australian life. Life was very tough for the youngsters who had to cope with discrimination and abuse. In 1951 the state Under-18 was practising near the school. The boys from St Francis’s took them on and gave them the runaround. Perkins and Moriarty and some of the others joined the squad soon after. That started the love affair with football.

Charles Perkins rose through a number of junior clubs in Adelaide including  Port Thistle juniors, International United (Redskins), and Budapest which he joined in 1956. His speed, power and ferocious shooting skills were recognised and in 1957 when he was at Fiorentina a scout from Everton offered to pay half his fare for a trial with the club in England. Like other young Australians, including Craig Johnston and Tony Dorigo, Perkins found the gulf between the football he had been used to in Australia and that in United Kingdom was huge. Though he tried hard he could not break into the Everton team and though he was offered a part-time contract in the end, he decided instead to try his luck elsewhere. He had a spell with local team in Wigan and then joined Bishop Auckland. On the face of it this was a curious move, going from a top professional team to an amateur one, but as he pointed out the amateur players were getting just as much money at the professionals in those days of the maximum wage in England. A game against Oxford University opened his mind to the possibility of going to university himself one day. In the short run he turned down offers in England, including one from Manchester United, and returned to Australia.

Charles Perkins in action. Source: John Maynard, The Aboriginal Soccer Tribe, p. 51, from Australian Soccer Weekly via Paul and Colin Tatz.

Adelaide Croatia, presided over by the leading housebuilder, Branko Fillipi, agreed to pay his fare home as they wanted his drive and direction for their push for promotion. Within months of coming home, he was helping the club to win promotion and cups as player-coach and becoming vice-captain of the South Australian state team. His experience in England had sharpened his skills including his tactical awareness and organisational capacity. John Moriarty and Gordon Briscoe were two other Aboriginal members of the Croatia team in these years. Meeting the future premier of South Australia Don Dunstan helped to develop his interest in the politics of Aboriginal advancement and in 1961 he moved to Sydney. After a false start at Bankstown he was offered a contract at Pan Hellenic, where he was an immediate hit. Once he settled among the Greek community he combined success on the football field with study for matriculation and then at Sydney University. Under his leadership Pan Hellenic finished fourth in Division One in New South Wales in 1961 and 1963. He finished his career as a player at Bankstown in 1965, but he remained involved in the game off the field.

Perkins, Soltos Patrinos, Jan Bout, Brian Smith, Nilo Rasulin, Joe Vlasits (coach). Front row: Chris Ambros, Angelo Mavropoulos, Doug Logan, Jimmy Pearson, Can Gameras. Missing: Jim Hatzis. Source: Laurie Schwab collection, Deakin University Library.

When the National Soccer League started he was president of Canberra City and became a member of the Australian Soccer Federation and its vice-president in 1987. He also helped promote the indoor game in Canberra along with his long time friend Johnny Warren and was president of the Australian Indoor Soccer Federation for a decade. He never forgot what he owed to the game and his autobiography A Bastard like Me tells the story, warts and all. His influence persisted long after he died in 2000, because he paved the way by his example for the next generation of talent to come through. Harry Williams worked closely with Perkins in Aboriginal support services in Rockdale in Sydney and went on to play for Australia in the World Cup in Germany in 1974. The modern generation of Aboriginal players, men and women, owe a great deal to the pioneering career of Charles Perkins.

Charles Perkins, activist and administrator. The Assistant Secretary of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs protests along with Bob McLeod and Allan Sharpley. Two of Perkins’ children on his right. Source: Laurie Schwab collection, Deakin University Library

Some of the best holidays are just on our doorstep here in Australia. We’ve been fairly busy recently so decided we should have a break and the chosen venue was Adelaide and South Australia. We hadn’t bargained on it being the weekend of the Classic Adelaide car rally, so there were petrol-heads everywhere with their vroom-vroom machines thundering around the streets and McLaren Vale and the Barossa Valley. Lots of Porsche drivers with the top halves of their flameproof overalls turned down. A very daggy look. That didn’t spoil Adelaide for me, the one place in Australia I would consider living in, if I were not thoroughly happy with Geelong and its region.

The rally cars went north on Saturday, so we went south to McLaren Vale where we know one of the local vignerons and his wife, who have just opened a restaurant in the old currant shed on their ten-hectare winery. They welcomed us to a shared plate of local delicacies and some sharp Sauvignon Blanc and a Chardonnay. We settled on the former and after lunch I ordered some of that and an export red, a batch of which was turned down at the last moment. As we were leaving two camels with tourists on board passed the road end. So I got a shot of them and the handler lady told me the lead camel was the star in the film Kangaroo Jack.

After lunch we decided we would go to the seaside rather than more wineries so we headed for Maslin Beach. There were nudists to the south, so we walked north in perfect sunshine with my wife having her feet in the water all the way. Coming back I had my shoes and trousers off and paddled along with her. Even took off my vest!

Also in McLaren Vale we coincided with the Biennale Exhibition of local art at Tatachilla, where there was one part of the exhibition in the Tinlin’s wine shed at the back of the tasting shop. It was a great setting with the pictures hung in front of the barrels. I voted for Abie Loy’s Bush Hen Dreaming in the people’s choice awards, a lovely piece of synthetic polymer on Belgian linen.

In the evening, we boarded the Glenelg tram and set off for a meal down at the water. When we got to the tram we found the old rattlers had been replaced by the new light rail machines, but the track duplication had not been completed beyond Glengowrie. So at Morphetville racecourse we de-trammed and a bus took us the rest of the way. We walked down past the pub to the pier but the restaurant on the front was fully booked, though virtually empty, so we returned to the main drag and found an Italian restaurant run by a young Greek soccer player and coach, with friends who grow olives. Not a bad combination and the food was excellent. After that we walked back, the bus arrived as we got to the corner and it took us to the tram and we were back in town in no time. A model of public transport in operation as I told the conductor’s mate. And so, as Pepys would say, to bed.

‘To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub.’ But at 12.40 am the hotel alarm went off. We were advised not to panic, to remain where we were, and await further instructions. I went through all my Towering Inferno scenarios. There was some milling about and chatter in the corridor, but eventually after another series of alarms came the message that the cause had been attended to and thanks for our co-operation and there would be no further instructions. Then the alarm beeped briefly again at 1.30 am. My wife slept through it all! Given all the petrol heads in the hotel, one suspected the worst, but the headlines next day would have been of the ‘small emergency, no one injured’ variety.

On Sunday the rally cars went south so after breakfast we headed north-east through Payneham into the Adelaide Hills past Millbrook Reservoir, Williamstown, and into the Barossa Valley at Lyndoch where we stopped for coffee. We also found the discreetly signed Information Centre, after a couple of U-turns, and then visited one of the commercial wineries, where my wife learned more about wine-making than she really wanted to know. Nevertheless it is a well-designed operation, neatly set out with curving Aboriginal-style entrance roads and paths and a wedding party in full swing within. Our next stop was at Tanunda.

I took some pictures of Chateau Tanunda and some youngsters playing a species of croquet on the lawn and then we went via the back roads to the Barossa Bush Gardens project at Nooriootpa. This is a brilliant volunteer effort to conserve and propagate local seeds of plants which are under threat of extinction. It covers several hectares and each species seems to have been adopted by a volunteer or a group and the majority of plants and trees seem to be flourishing despite the drought. This is an idea we could develop locally, I’m sure, for there are plenty of the local species under threat.

Finally on the last morning I took my wife to the Adelaide Town Hall, a superb building in its own right, but housing a picture I wanted her to see. It is the mayoral painting of Jane Lomax-Smith, full-length in evening dress with a strategically placed chain of office, mounted above eye-level at the end of a corridor. The walls of the corridor are occupied by the head and shoulders portraits of her male predecessors, all looking glum and lugubrious as if they knew that eventually they would be looked down upon by a powerful and striking woman.

Adelaide and South Australia turned it on for us once again with a lovely combination of great weather, superb food and wine, and series of surprises to keep us on our toes.